


None the Worse for Wear

by MagitekUnit05953234



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Depression, Executive Dysfunction, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Mentioned Gladiolus Amicitia, Mentioned Prompto Argentum, Sharing Clothes, brotherhood era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 21:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17352959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/pseuds/MagitekUnit05953234
Summary: Ignis notes, in the corner of his brain that seems devoted to storing little factoids about his prince that have absolutely no bearing on Ignis’s job whatsoever, that Noct’s socks don’t match. One is black with blue lines adorning the toe and heel, while the other is a solid dark grey.





	None the Worse for Wear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NekoAisu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/gifts).



> Did I proofread this? No. Did I write most of this in the course of like 5 writing sprints while very sick? Yes.  
> Kiri, if you're reading this, I love you  
> This fic was a mesh of some of our ideas from way back in like August or July or something and I finally got my ass in gear and finished it

It takes one step into the apartment for Ignis to know that something is terribly, terribly wrong. He had been away for several weeks shadowing a councilman on the outer edges of Insomnia and had trusted that Noctis would be able to handle himself for the days that Ignis could not assist in his daily affairs. A temporary aide to attend council meetings and write reports had been provided, as well as a driver, but it is incredibly apparent that Noctis had failed to take advantage of any other resources at his disposal to keep his daily life afloat.

The apartment is nothing less than a disaster. Ignis has arrived to a sight like this many times in the years following Noctis’s move out of the Citadel, but it had been rarer lately. With a combination of Ignis’s usual efforts and Noctis slowly getting better at overcoming his executive dysfunction, the apartment wasn’t usually too bad. Even without Ignis’s constant attention, the apartment was generally passably clean.

Not today. Ignis hadn’t seen the apartment in such a state of disarray since a particularly bad spiral during Noct’s senior year finals week. Ignis closes the door behind him and toes off his shoes, leaving them neatly beside the two pairs of Noct’s shoes that seem to have been haphazardly thrown against the doorjamb.

“Your highness?” Ignis calls out softly as he traverses the veritable minefield of the hallway toward Noct’s room. The door is open but just barely. Ignis knocks on the doorframe, loathe to intrude on Noctis’s space without permission. “Are you awake?”

At the lack of an answer, Ignis pushes the door open a little more and peers into the prince’s bedroom. The room is, somehow, in even worse condition than the rest of the apartment and yet there are signs that Noct has  _ tried _ to fix it. Much of the junk-based salmagundi is just collections of plastic shopping bags filled with garbage —still a mess but also one of the only ways Noct can bring himself to tidy in one of his bad spells. If he can’t manage to stay on top of his surroundings, he can at least try to concentrate and contain the clutter. He’s failed, as he tends to do in this situation, and Ignis knows that that has likely only made Noct feel worse.

Noct’s bed hasn’t escaped the effects of his apparent downswing. Takeout boxes litter the floor beside it. Stray plates, bowls, and silverware have collected in spots around the corners. Clothes, either already worn or washed without the initiative to be put away, form a large mound of fabric at the foot. Report folders, writing utensils, and a few open notebooks are spread across the sheets. A power strip is balancing precariously on the edge of the bed, with an extension cord and several chargers connected to it. Noct’s phone and laptop are plugged in, idling next to the head of their owner.

Noct himself is prone on the bed, slumbering in the biggest space he must have been able to clear before he fell asleep. His body is barely accommodated amongst the detritus of his depression, tucked carefully between his laptop, a pile of clothes, and several discarded cans of Uncle Randell. He lays face down, and Ignis knows Noct’s back will be aching from it when he wakes up.

“Noctis,” Ignis picks his way across the room and shakes Noct’s shoulder lightly. “It’s three in the afternoon. Noctis.”

Noctis fails to wake, shifting lightly to turn his face into the sheets (his pillows are nowhere to be found). Ignis tries again, and this time is at least rewarded with a flickering of the eyelids.

“Your highness,” Ignis is glad to see Noct roused to semi-awareness, and shifts to the side to allow Noct room to sit up.

“Ignis?” Noctis rubs at his eyes, then stiffens. “Oh fu— shi— Ignis, oh gods.”

Noctis scrambles upright, knocking several empty cans to the floor as he goes. Ignis steadies him. “Good afternoon, Noctis.”

“I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow,” Noctis shifts around to face Ignis, pushing several items behind him as if moving them now would hide them from Ignis’s awareness. “Did something happen?”

“Just a slight change of schedule,” Ignis takes a moment to look Noct over. He looks generally alert, much more so than usual after being awoken, but Ignis doesn’t miss the heavy circles under his eyes, nor does Ignis miss the over-rumpled state of Noct’s clothing and the lankness of his hair. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Specs,” Noct grimaces and runs a hand through his hair. It sticks up in his wake. “I was gonna clean everything today. Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s three in the afternoon, Noct,” Ignis stands up. “When did you go to sleep?”

“Dunno,” Noct breathes one sharp inhale and one long exhale. His throat works for a moment. “I was gonna clean. When I woke up.”

“I know,” Ignis says, though he doesn’t really think Noct would have managed it while he’s in this state. “I understand.”

Noctis pushes his covers off and slides his legs off the bed. Ignis notes, in the corner of his brain that seems devoted to storing little factoids about his prince that have absolutely no bearing on Ignis’s job whatsoever, that Noct’s socks don’t match. One is black with blue lines adorning the toe and heel, while the other is a solid dark grey. “Thanks for waking me up.”

“It was no trouble,” Ignis steps back to give Noct room to stand, and cringes when his foot crunches on something. A glance to the floor reveals an empty clamshell case, now cracked heavily. Ignis bends to pick it up, turning the ruined plastic around in his hands.

“Oh that was—” Noct reaches for it and takes it with little resistance from Ignis. “I don’t actually know. I guess it probably doesn’t matter.”

That treacherous little part of Ignis’s brain neatly files away the feeling of Noct’s hand brushing his, a consequence of such a commonplace action as grabbing a cd case.

Ignis shakes himself from his contemplation of Noct’s fingers brushing his own and adjusts the cuffs of his sleeves. “Why don’t you shower and get dressed while I see to tidying up the kitchen, hm? We can have a late lunch.”

Noct stiffens a little at that, a slight tense of shoulders under his thin sleep shirt. He sets the clamshell case down on the bed, and when he turns back around his face is more obscured by his hair than not.

“What is it?”

“I was gonna clean today,” Noct repeats. He shakes his head, and the flashes of his cheeks that Ignis catches are red with an embarrassed blush. “I uh… haven’t done laundry in a little while. And I got taller. I haven’t really… picked out any new stuff like I was supposed to and we donated pretty much all of the older stuff since it didn’t fit. So I don’t really. I don’t have a lot to wear right now. Anything, really. Anything that’s clean.”

Something in Ignis twists at that. He reminds himself to breath as he considers the way Noct must have been living in his absence. “I’m sure we can find you something suitable.”

Ignis navigates the mess in Noct’s room with practised ease, despite the sick feeling that twists through his insides at each new discovery of something that Noct clearly tried to fix or clean but lost the will to finish when halfway through. True to Noct’s word, his drawers are almost entirely empty, as is his closet. Formalwear still hangs in bags in the back of the closet, and Noct’s top drawer thankfully still has clean undergarments and socks —though none of the socks are matched— but the drawers and hangers meant for standard clothing are essentially barren. The few things that Ignis pulls out are very obviously too short in the leg or two small in the shoulders and probably only kept around for sentimental value, like the chocobo shirt Noct won in some small folk festival Noct accompanied Prompto to in their junior year.

There is one drawer that is still fairly full. Ignis hasn’t touched it in quite some time, but he remembers what is in there well enough. Back when Noct was fourteen and has newly moved in to his apartment, Ignis spent more time here than at his own quarters in the Citadel. Given Ignis’s busy schedule as he rushed to finish high school and enter university, he was often tired enough by the end of the evening that Noct forbade Ignis to drive himself back home and told him to just sleep in the guest room. Ignis gave in easier than he himself expected he would, and it became a sort of tradition out of necessity. After watching Ignis stress over transporting himself from place to place and still have time to work and study and maybe even sleep if he was lucky, Noct insisted that Ignis just settle in and essentially live at Noct’s until exams were over. 

Ignis, against his better judgement,  _ did  _ end up sleeping in Noct’s guest room for the better part of a month. It certainly made getting Noct to school and monitoring his own exam studies easier than it had been, and provided time for Ignis to get his own work done and even manage a few hours to unwind here and there. It was nice, and now it is even  _ useful _ all these years later. It might be, anyway.

“Say,” Ignis inspects the old clothing, measuring it in his mind’s eye. “Some of this might fit you.”

“What, your old stuff?” Noct sidles up behind Ignis, peering over his shoulder at the shirt in Ignis’s grasp. “No way.”

“Well, these  _ are _ from when I was fifteen or so,” Ignis loosely folds the shirt in his hands and peruses the rest of the drawer. “I hadn’t quite finished growing yet. I was about your height then, I believe.”

“Maybe,” doubt colors Noct’s voice, heavy with pigment like the fur of a white cat that’s rolled around on a sidewalk chalk drawing. Despite that, there’s something curious underneath. “You’d let me wear these?”

“They’re hardly being put to use now,” Ignis is more surprised than he should be to find a set of suspenders coiled neatly in the back corner of the drawer. “It wouldn’t do much harm while we wait for a load of laundry to finish.”

“Sure,” Noct crouches down beside Ignis, inspecting the suspenders Ignis has just set aside. “Not really my style but… might be fun, right?”

Ignis doesn’t consider his manner of dress —which has changed remarkably little over the years, oddly enough— to be anything that would make someone have fun just by the act of being worn, but he’ll take it if it means Noct gets out of the pajamas he is currently ensconced in, which have what appears to be a stain from spilled marinara sauce on the collar. “If you say so.”

Noct picks out a black button-down that Ignis is almost certain is made with sea island cotton and black pants in a matching shade. After a moment’s hesitation, he even picks up the grey suspenders he had been looking at before.

“You hardly need the suspenders,” Ignis start, but Noct shrugs before he makes it through the phrase.

“If I’m gonna be wearing your stuff, might as well go all out right? Go big or go home.”

Noct vanishes into his bathroom after sheepishly pushing one of his overflowing hampers out of it. Ignis busies himself first with setting a load of what he knows are Noct’s essentials in the washing machine before starting on tidying the kitchen. It is one of the more clean rooms in the apartment, likely because of how rare it is for Noctis to actually prepare a meal for himself, but it is still plagued by many of the same issues that Noct’s entire space is. Ignis clears one counter and empties the dishwasher, which was halfway emptied already from some ill-fated attempt at being productive it seems, and refills it with the dishes that had been stacked precariously in both side of the sink. Ignis will likely have to make a sweep of the apartment later to catch whatever plates and cups ended up scattered around in Noct’s depressed wake, but for now this is enough.

As Ignis feared, there’s very little worth eating in Noct’s fridge. There are eggs that look fairly fresh, bought somewhat recently for reasons Ignis can’t begin to imagine, which is a start. He pokes through the crisper to find anything he could add to make an omelette better than a monotonous slab of spiced egg, but the vegetables there are all much too old to use. It’s a familiar sight, yet there’s still a pang of something unidentifiable in Ignis’s gut as he throws them all out.

Ignis, much to his dismay, begins to contemplate ordering in as the minutes crawl by with little to show for it in the means of a meal. Noctis has likely been living on delivered junk and whatever takeout he could get Prompto to bring on his visits, so Ignis is loathe to contribute to that poor dietary trend, but unless he were to leave right this second to go shopping he is left with very few options.

About half an hour passes before Ignis hears the faint ambient noise of Noct’s shower cease from across the apartment. Ignis is halfway through perusing a messy pile of battered takeout menus that took up residence in a drawer under the cup cabinet some time ago. The Altissian restaurant a few blocks down is looking like the best option so far, but Ignis has spotted some promising things in the glances of options further down in the stack. 

“Hey Specs,” Noct pads into the kitchen and wanders around the island the long way, meandering to Ignis’s side with careless grace. “The kitchen looks… nice. I know I never really thank you for this sort of thing but… you know. Thanks.”

Ignis looks up from the mildly sauce-stained cardstock in his hands and has to take a moment to compose himself. A long moment. Maybe long enough to be considered more than a single moment.

Noctis has, for some time, possessed a measure of beauty to him that Ignis tries his best to ignore at every meeting. It’s effortless, apparent even when Noct’s four days deep in a downswing and hasn’t so much as thought of getting out of bed for more than a snack in that time, and now that he’s cleaned up a little he’s positively radiant. His hair is wet, towel-dried enough not to drip water everywhere but still damp enough for tiny beads of moisture to collect at the ends of his bangs. His face is red around the cheeks, likely a result of spending so long in what was probably a hotter shower than Ignis would be able to stand. Noct’s eyes are clear, dark blue like the sky just as it turns to night, and unfogged by the fatigue that usually follows Noctis around like a coeurl tracking an injured arba. And his clothes…

Well. It’s not as if Ignis has never seen Noctis outside of his usual attire. Noctis has worn plenty of perfectly tailored suits and even a dress once or twice when he was younger and had to be coerced into going to every formal event with the promise of a new video game or a break from weekly report readings. Noct cleans up well, has always cleaned up well, and that is certainly no news to Ignis.

What is new, is  _ this _ . Is Noctis edging the line between formal and casual in Ignis’s own clothes —old though they may be— and looking fairly at home in them, despite their stark contrast to Noctis’s own personal style. The shirt is tight across the shoulders, a little long in the sleeves, and hugs Noct’s hips where he’s tucked it into his pants. The suspenders stretch neat lines between shoulder and waist, leaving little gaps between elastic and cotton where Noct’s not quite filled out enough for his stomach to touch the straps. Ignis isn’t sure why he expected Noctis to forgo the suspenders, but his expectations were averted quite nicely. The pants Noctis has on aren’t a perfect fit either, being a little long once again, but it’s not enough that he’s trodding on the hems.

That treacherous corner of Ignis’s brain notes that Noctis is wearing mismatched socks again. They aren’t the same ones as before, but they still aren’t matching.

For some reason, the sight makes affection swell deep in a forbidden place in Ignis. He tears his eyes away and tries to close the door to that alcove within his own mind, shoving such unsuitable thoughts behind lock and key.

“You don’t have to thank me for anything,” Ignis returns to the menu in his hands, though he can’t really read it much with the way his fingers tremble ever so slightly. “It is always my pleasure.”

Noct hums, but doesn’t otherwise reply.

“Do you have a preference between these?” Ignis slides the three best options over the countertop and Noct makes a show of investigating each one, squinting and running his fingertip down the list of food items. 

“Altissian looks good,” Noct says. A drop of water quivers at the end of his bangs, stills, then falls onto the corner of the menu. He scrubs it away with a thumb. “Sorry about that.”

Ignis clears away the rest of the menus, leaving the one he and Noctis agreed on out so he could get the delivery phone number off it.

“You don’t have to bribe me or something,” Noct says after Ignis ends the call. He’s hovering around the doorway to the living room, which is still as much a disaster as the rest of the apartment. “I know I’m a bit of a lazy piece of shit —I mean you don’t get an apartment like this without that— but I was going to get it all done. You don’t have to clean it all or order me takeout or anything. That’s not your job.”

“Would you believe me if I said I’d like to?” Ignis says before the first half of Noct’s statement catches up to him. “You aren’t nearly as lazy as you present yourself to be. You and I are both aware that there are extenuating circumstances when it comes to you and what many consider to be basic tasks. You needn’t insult yourself by insisting it’s purely the fault of a character flaw.”

“Isn’t it though?” Noct’s turned away for the most part, examining a painting of Tenebrae’s countryside as if it hasn’t been mounted there since Noctis moved into the apartment. Ignis can’t see his eyes. “Someday I’m going to be the king, and I’m going to be responsible for this whole damn country, but I can’t even be responsible for my first apartment without needing you to fix all my screw-ups for me. Sounds like a hell of a character flaw to me.”

The clothes washer beeps the end of its cycle.

Ignis, uncharacteristically, doesn’t know how exactly he ended up across the room to stand beside Noctis. He doesn’t remember placing his hand on Noct’s shoulder. He doesn’t think about what he says next. “You are ill, Noctis. You have been for years. You work hard to do many things that feel impossible for you because you want to make your father proud, despite how difficult your illness makes it. The fact that you are still fighting is a testament to your strength, and your setbacks are not a sign that you are unworthy of your birthright as the Prince of Lucis. They are merely setbacks, and you do not have to deal with them on your own. Your father is not alone in his duty as King, nor will you be. He has his advisors, his guard, his confidants. You will have those as well.”

Noctis stares up at Ignis, his expression unreadable. He doesn’t move to shrug away Ignis’s touch.

“I think you will find that you already do,” Ignis clears his throat, suddenly aware of how dry it feels. “Gladio, Prompto, myself. While I would usually hesitate to speak for the others, I am certain that they are just as willing to stand by you as I am. You will never be alone in this if you don’t want to be.”

There’s a silence that stretches a bit too long. Ignis moves to step away, to return to a more decorous orbit around his prince. Before he can, Noct’s hand, peeking out from the cuffs of his borrowed shirt, takes hold of Ignis’s wrist and keeps him there.

“Ignis,” Noct meets Ignis’s eyes for just a moment before his gaze skitters to the side. “Do you really mean it? That you’ll… no matter what, that you’ll keep putting up with me and all this? No matter what?”

Ignis’s throat feels like more of a desert than a part of his living body. He swallows. “I would do anything for you,” he says, before he thinks better of it.

“Because it’s your job?” Noct presses. “Or because you actually want to?”

“Because you’re you,” Ignis feels like he’s under the light of a million suns, his body but a mere husk under the light of such ethereal, destructive, exquisite power. “And there is nowhere else I would rather be than at your side, in any capacity.”

Noct’s grip shifts, his fingers moving up to intertwine with Ignis’s own. “In any capacity?”

“Yes,” Ignis breathes out. The locks to that terrifying room in the corner of Ignis’s brain fall useless to the floor, rusting away to nothing. The door creaks under the weight of all the things behind it straining to escape. “Anything. Anywhere, with you.”

“Do you…” Noct raises their clasped hands lightly. “Do you want this?”

“I shouldn’t,” Ignis confesses much more than he meant to in that. Noctis must realize it, because his eyes widen, beautiful and oh so blue.

“But you do. And not because I’m a prince? Not because of… everything else? Your duty? Your job?”

“Despite it.”

Noctis, eighteen and weary from the weight of a life he never asked for, damp from a midday shower and dressed in Ignis’s old clothes, more than a man but not yet grown, brings a hand up to touch the side of Ignis’s face. He smiles slightly, one side of his mouth quirking up minutely, and his thumb swipes across Ignis’s cheekbone, passing under the rim of his glasses. “Ignis, I…”

The buzzer for the front door of the complex jolts them out of their reverie. 

“The food,” Ignis glances to the clock and finds that much more time had passed than he thought.

“I’ll get it,” Noctis declares. He stretches up on his tiptoes, plants a soft, brief  kiss to Ignis’s lips, then turns and makes for the exit.

Ignis watches him leave, examining the stretch of fabric over Noct’s shoulders and the neat Y the suspenders cast over his back.

The door inside Ignis’s mind falls open and for once in his life he lets it.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: Noctis's room was based off a combination of the way his apartment looked in Bittersweet Memories and with the state of my room when I started writing this (which was like...in July lol)  
> Depression's no joke, y'all


End file.
